BOTANY OF LAKE HURON. 477 



place wherein to discuss this plausible theory, though in passing 

 it may be remarked that it demands a persistence of specific type 

 through enormous periods of time, and over enormous areas, and 

 under incalculable changes of conditions, that at first sight tells with 

 considerable force against Darwin's own theory of the origin of 

 ■species by natural selection. 



Provincial TypE.^Throughout the wooded district of the east 

 coast occur a number of species of very wide distribution ovci' the 

 whole Dominion. These are fovmd diffiised through the Provinces 

 from Newfoundland to Lake Superior, and are emmently Canadian 

 in type. 



Austral Type. — As we proceed southward from the Bi-uce Penin- 

 sula towards the Ptiviere aux Sables (south), we come upon a vegeta- 

 tion approaching more and more to that of the coast of Lake Erie, or 

 that of the westehi portion of the State of New York. The forests 

 south of the Maitland, and more particularly those of the Bayfield 

 and Arix Sables Rivers, are characterized by an abundance of Oak, 

 (Quercus rubra, Q. macrocarioa, Q. coccinea, Q. alba), and Eed Pine 

 (Pinus resinosa) ; and outlying patches of the White Pine (Pinus 

 strohus), are of frequent occurrence over the southern part of Huron 

 County, and the Township of Bosanquet, in the County of Lambton. 

 The Tulip Tree, or so-called White wood ( lAriodendron tulipifera), 

 decidedly a south-western type, and heretofore reported only from 

 that portion of Ontario circumscribed by London, Hamilton, St. 

 Catharines, and Sandwich, is found in great abundance along the 

 Lake, and inland from the Township of Sai-nia northward to the 

 valley of the Bayfield Ptiver — the latter locality being its most 

 northern home in North America. Among the sands of the Eivi^re 

 aux Sables, and growing abundantly with the Bed Pine and Staghorn 

 Sumach ( Rhustyphina), was found the southern Quercus ilicifolia, 

 the Black Scrub Oak, a straggling shrub from three to eight feet in 

 height, with petiolate leaves, whitish-do^vny beneath, a subturbinate 

 cup and ovoid acorn. In the intervale lands of the above-named 

 rivers grows in great abundance the Buttonwood (Platanus oeci- 

 dentdlis, a tree which further south, along the mud-flats of the 

 Thames, attains gigantic proportions. Here too are found in greater 

 or less abundance the Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), the Flowering 

 Dogwood (Cornusjlorida), the thick, shell-bark Hickory (Carya sul- 

 <:ata), the American Crab Aj)ple (Pyrus coronarius), the Sassafras 



